Joe Volpe

[Committees of the House, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Chapter 5, “Acquiring Military Vehicles for Use in Afghanistan” of the fall 2009 report of the Auditor General of Canada.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the 19th report.

[Points of Order, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise with respect to the admissibility of three amendments made in committee to Bill C-442, An Act to establish a National Holocaust Monument. The bill, which was reported back to the House with amendments on June 9, 2010, is scheduled to be debated on October 27, 2010.

Before I speak to my substantive points, I want you to know that I and my party and each member of the House wish to see the establishment of a national Holocaust monument in our nation's capital as soon as humanly possible. In bringing this matter to your attention, I am simply seeking to ensure that proper procedure and practice is followed on this important bill and that there are no errors in legislation and indeed in the process.

I seek your ruling that the committee has exceeded its authority and passed amendments that are beyond the principle and scope of the bill as outlined in House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, page 766. To wit:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principles of the bill.

As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, the issue of inadmissible amendments being passed in committee and included in the bill as reported has arisen in the House on numerous occasions. In the most recent occurrence, you ruled on May 11, 2010 that the Speaker does not get involved in committee issues except in cases where a committee has exceeded its authority, such as an amendment that is beyond the scope of the bill. In such cases, the Speaker is responsible for ruling on the admissibility of such amendments after the bill has been reported to the House. This is because the motion to refer the bill to committee after second reading establishes the principle and the scope of the bill. As a result, a committee report that is not consistent with that motion must be corrected.

On September 18, 2009, Bill C-442 was introduced by the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park and was debated at second reading on December 8, 2009. In presenting his private member's bill, the member for Edmonton--Sherwood Park summarized the scope and principle of the bill when he concluded:

This monument is a statement made by Canadians to the world that honours those who died in the tragedy of the Holocaust and says to future generations of Canadians, never again.

Based on this principle, the House of Commons unanimously, and I might add enthusiastically, adopted Bill C-442 at second reading and referred it to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

On May 13, 2010, the committee began a study of the bill at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities where the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park stated, and I repeat, that the Prime Minister gave his support and approval to the bill as passed in the House.

On May 26, 2010, and again on June 3, 2010, your committee met in public, not in camera, for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. The government presented a total of nine amendments, one for each clause of the bill.

At the meeting on June 3, 2010, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities moved five amendments. In at least three cases the chair ruled the proposed amendments inadmissible. In each case the chair's ruling was appealed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and the chair was overruled. The amendments were then carried on division.

For clarity's sake, I will read out the specific amendments in question.

On Clause 2, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities moved:

That Bill C-442, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing line 10 on page 2 with the following:

“Minister under section 4 and directed as such by the Minister to form a legal entity in order to properly manage the functions and ensure good governance and accountability of said council.”

The chair ruled this amendment inadmissible because it proposed a substantive amendment to the bill by way of a modification to the interpretation clause, as provided on page 769 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition.

On Clause 7, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities moved:

That Bill C-442, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing lines 12 and 13 on page 3 with the following:

(fund rais)“ing campaign to cover the cost of planning, designing, constructing, installing and maintaining the Monument, and any other costs incurred by the Council.”

The chair ruled this amendment inadmissible because it was beyond the scope of the bill, as provided on page 766 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition.

Further, on clause 8, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities moved:

That Bill C-442, in Clause 8, be amended by replacing lines 14 to 16 on page 3 with the following:

“8. The Minister may delegate to the Council his or her responsibilities under paragraphs 6(a) and (c) and subsection 7(1).”

The chair ruled this amendment inadmissible because it was moved at the wrong place in the bill, as provided on page 768 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, and also because it was beyond the scope of the bill, as provided on page 766 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition.

In committee, I argued that the government, in bringing nine amendments to the bill, one for each clause, was attempting to rewrite the bill, leaving nothing but the title intact.

A national Holocaust monument in our nation's capital is something that the government can accomplish today, without this legislation. However, since it has chosen the legislative route, it is important that the proper procedures and practices be followed so that the House can be assured that the committee did not overstep its authority and produce legislation beyond its mandate to do so.

It is my view that upon examination, Mr. Speaker, you, too, will find that the amendments proposed by the government are inadmissible and that the bill should be restored in its original form and so reported to this House.

I respectfully seek your ruling on the matter and thank you in anticipation of same.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 19th, 2010]

I suppose that a drive-by smear might be able to stick provided it was accompanied by facts. I did not hear any from the colleague opposite.

Just because he could not get any of the facts, it does not mean that they are not there.

By the way, with respect to how we dealt with the Americans, we said, “We treat you with respect and dignity, reciprocate”. On the softwood lumber issue, I do not know if “negotiation” has a new meaning for the Conservatives when they left $1 billion of the $5 billion on the table and said this was a great deal. We were negotiating to get all $5 billion. They gave away 20%. That is not very good.

If that is the way that the Conservatives look at negotiating with the United States, or indeed any other country, then the country of Canada would be well rid of them.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 19th, 2010]

My hon. colleague from Mississauga South is absolutely right. He focused on all of the market information that might be available to a competent foreign agency. What they do with that information is beyond our control.

What they are exploring, of course, is not just the personal information, name and address or whatever, but anything that comes with one's credit card and credit history. In fact, over the course of these last 24 hours we discovered that there are photocopying machines and companies that lease these things out that have access to every piece of information that one has ever put on that photocopier, going back to one's SIN number and to any kind of documents that relate to oneself.

They have been able to find out how much people earn, how many people they support with that money, what they have given to agencies, to charities, or in gifts, or what purchases they have made. The impact is limitless from a market point of view. Not only is it limitless, but the law says it is whatever they require.

It is not just what the carrier, the operator, has in his or her possession; it is what he may be required to have by a foreign state.

So a foreign country is making decisions for us. Goodbye Canadian sovereignty.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for what the government has done or did not do on this. I can speculate on the basis of the modest experience that I have.

The member is quite right. There are two competing commercial issues at play. The American airlines go through Canadian airspace. Canadian operators go through American airspace. It is an unbalanced amount. They say they need the information for their security. We are not worried about any security or lack thereof coming from the United States. It is purely a commercial interest.

What did we do? As I said, one can either negotiate to promote and defend Canadian interests, be they commercial or private, or one can walk away. The government clearly walked away. It did not negotiate. For that, it is a shame.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that I was asked that question, because it was raised during my discussion. I had the opportunity to be in cabinet. It is quite an onerous situation. It is a privilege that very few get, and I am pleased to have had it. This was an issue that came up while I was there.

As I said earlier in my remarks, the government has options. The very first option is to begin to negotiate to defend the interests of Canadians. That is the very first thing, and it is the second thing and it is the third thing. It is the ongoing thing that must happen. We must continue to negotiate. The moment we walk away from the table, we are left with this legislation.

As for Russia, I am also happy to hear that the member wants to use that as an example, because the Russians have never created this kind of a problem for us. It is the big, bad Russian bear, the bugaboo out there that everybody likes to conjure up whenever they want to justify something else. It is an old trick that the government has used.

The government used it just recently when it spotted, 200 miles off the Canadian border, a couple of twin-engine planes that the Russians were using for scouting in their own territory. The government said that was why we needed F-35s: “By George, we are going to spend $16 billion so that our guys can go out there and take care of that Russian menace”. There is no Russian menace.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I looked at this bill briefly when it was first presented on the last day that the House sat before it recessed for the summer. I would like members to think for a moment about the timing at work here.

The Conservatives entered the election in 2006 saying they would stand up for Canada. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that meant they were going to stand up for Canadians. Here we are now at second reading of this bill. But it was presented on the last day that the House sat in the middle of June 2010. I asked myself: Who is standing up for Canadians? What would this bill do? It is a very brief bill. It is a paragraph of some 14 lines.

The bill outlines four separate areas that deserve the attention of every member of Parliament who proposes or espouses to defend the interests of Canadians, whether on issues of privacy, sovereignty, commerce, or security.

The first statement in the bill says that, notwithstanding whatever is in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, every Canadian operator of an aircraft is obliged to hand over any information in its control that is required by the laws of a foreign state. The carrier does not have an option. Imagine that.

We have been paying attention to the United States for such a long time in this debate that I have to use it as an example, but this does refer to the U.S. exclusively. The Americans have passed the Patriot Act, and under that act they justify requests for information that go beyond anybody's imagination. This bill says that it does not matter. Whatever protections Canadians think they have under PIPEDA, for example, or the Privacy Act, they have no longer, because the Americans, according to the competent authority that flows from the Patriot Act, have the right to ask for that information and to use it in any way they wish.

I am not paranoid by nature, notwithstanding the profession we are in, but the bill says “any foreign state” over which a Canadian operator of an aircraft flies. The operator does not necessarily have to land in that foreign state.

I want to change the boundaries of the discussion and think for a moment about someone who leaves Ottawa, Montreal, or Toronto to fly to Dubai. If I am not mistaken, if an individual flies on a Canadian aircraft that individual is probably going to fly over the United States, maybe Portugal, probably Spain, or alternatively, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and any of the Emirates. This legislation says that any of those countries can demand information from that Canadian operator. Without that information, any one of those countries can deny our aircraft the opportunity to fly over its airspace.

No one contests that every country has its own right to demand certain conditions be met in its airspace. I think that is called sovereignty, which I will get to in a minute. If we want to respect other countries' sovereignty, we must at least understand that we live in a grown-up world and that a few of the countries that I just cited might have an interest that goes beyond simply trying to find out if Paul Smith or Peter Szabo is actually on that flight. They might actually have an interest in promoting the affairs of their own carriers, and one of the ways to do it is to initiate a series of debilitating actions in law that require our carriers to go through a series of demands that they must satisfy. That would be the business world.

Here we have focused on the United States, forgetting, of course, that there are a lot of other countries over which Canadian carriers must fly in order to maintain a competitive and an economically viable business. We just said, with this piece of legislation, that if any of those carriers want to do business, they can, provided they can convince their passengers that they are up that proverbial creek without that paddle, because the Canadian government will not come to their defence. The Canadian government, under this bill, has completely washed its hands of anybody who boards a plane and flies outside of Canada. If passengers are prepared to expose their entire life, their business practices, whatever private matters they have to a foreign authority, they should not count on the Canadian government coming to their defence.

I know what they would say. They would say so what because that is already the case. The Canadian government is walking away from everybody who runs into trouble, whether they do it deliberately or whether they are caught in a jam abroad, so why should passengers be any different?

According to this bill, if people board a Canadian operated aircraft in Paris and they want to fly to Canada, if the English, the Irish and the Scots demand to have information on them, they cannot get a boarding pass until that aircraft operator provides that information to those three countries, because, of course, that is part of the route to get back into Canada.

We focused on the United States. I understand the problem with the United States. If people come from the interior of Canada, as I do, for example in southern Ontario, they have two options. If they want to travel down south, whether to Cuba, Mexico, Latin America, South America or anywhere else, they can go across the lake into Buffalo and use its airport and they do not need to worry about anything. They maintain their privacy. People could board a plane at Pearson and then have to go through this, because the Canadian government just said that their option is to go down the 401 or the Queen Elizabeth Way and go to a foreign country to board another carrier because the government will not help out its carrier. Why will the government not help them out? Because Canadian carriers are already bending over backwards and breaking the law to provide information for homeland security defence in the United States, otherwise they cannot do business there, or they will increase the costs to their business by taking a circuitous route to a further destination, i.e. they will not be competitive with the other carriers in North America.

What does the Canadian government do? Does it stand up for Canada and Canadians? No, it abandons them completely. This bill is a total abnegation of our sovereignty responsibility. Can anyone imagine letting a foreign authority, not the government, but a competent authority within the government of another country, determine what it must know about whatever passenger boards a plane in Canada to go someplace else or another place in order to come to Canada.

A border security agent is the person making decisions for what happens to Canadians either aboard a Canadian carrier here or abroad to come home. The Canadian government stands up for Canada where? It has given up on Canadians and has said ”to heck with that airline business, let the airlines do something else because we need to ensure that we comply with a foreign state's demands”.

The alternative is that it could negotiate. I heard one of the parliamentary secretaries say that we negotiated exemptions. I do not know who the “we” were. I thought the Conservative government wanted to wash its hands of everything that was Liberal, but the negotiations and that exemption took place under a Liberal government. I think somebody said that it was in 2001. I could have sworn it was a little later, but it does not matter. It certainly was not the Conservative government because it refuses to negotiate. It gave up on negotiation.

The government presented this in the middle of the last day that the House sat before it recessed so it would not have the scrutiny of Parliament on running and hiding from its responsibility to protect Canadian sovereignty, Canadian sovereignty, as expressed through commercial interests, through the harassment of the interests of Canadian carriers and through the privacy concerns of every Canadian. Even if Canadians do not understand or do not care about their own privacy, it is integral to what we think is a Canadian.

We have the right to maintain our own decisions regarding the dignity of information that relates to us as individuals unless we give it up. The Conservative Government of Canada just said that it was not worth a tinker's damn. I have it here in 14 lines. It said goodbye. The government does not think it is worthwhile and if there are foreign states that want it, the government will give it to them. If people think they would like to take the aircraft operator to court for giving up their privacy rights, it says here that they should forget it because they will not have a base in court on which to stand.

One of my colleagues from the Bloc was talking about the security issues and the problems of being on a no-fly list. The government made a big deal of having a passenger protect system. That is a no-fly list. People do not know how they got on that list. There are all kinds of ways. Only one person can take someone off that list and that is the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. However, let people try to get a hold of him when they are being prevented from boarding a plane. He has to contact people at homeland security and they do not answer the phone.

Is there a way to keep Canadians safe? We should think about that for a moment. When the Americans asked for this, they told everybody in Canada to forget about the nonsense of $11 million to buy 40 full body scanners because they would not make Americans feel any better about the kinds of people who board Canadian planes. That is essentially what they are doing.

Last spring, the Minister of Finance said that the government would raise another $3.2 billion so that it could invest a further $1.5 billion in air security. In other words, Canada would make a further investment in ensuring that the Americans think that whenever people board planes in Canada, they will be okay. What did the Americans say? They said, “We don't believe you”. I am being polite. They said, “We just don't believe you”.

What did we do? Did we protest? Did we negotiate? Did we go to them and tell them about all of these things that we were doing? Did we tell them that we had spent $11 million on 40 scanners and that we will be spending another $1.5 billion on securing our borders and ports to ensure that anybody who goes anywhere near American territory will be receiving a stamp of approval for safety and security that only Canada can provide and that America will respect?

Did the government do that? No, it did not stand up for Canada. Its current slogan is here for Canada. I do not know where it thinks Canada is. Is it not in our midst? Is it not to protect the interests of Canadians no matter where they go? Is it not to be there to negotiate with other neighbours here in our hemisphere? Should it not be telling them what we have done to ensure that our backyard is safe so they can feel safe and secure ?

No, it did not do that. The government came up with Bill C-42, which basically says that the government can beat anybody in a 100-yard dash as long as it is moving away from trouble. It is just insane.

I know some of my colleagues from the other parties think this will be remedied and rectified when it goes to committee. That will not happen. The patriot act goes into effect in December. The Americans warned the Canadian government last year that it had one year to comply or to negotiate.

The government said that there was a better tactic. It said that it would go to sleep for six months and then in June it would present the amendment to the Aeronautics Act that washes its hands of any responsibility to Canadians and Canadian businesses, and then it would send the bill off to committee. By that time, of course, the House will either have been prorogued or it will be close to Christmas and it will say that it has already been done and the message has been sent off.

That is not governance and that is not standing up for Canada or for Canadians. That is an abnegation and abdication of responsibility and authority. If the government asks Canadians for the right to govern this country, it is because it wants to do something that protects their interests and advances their progress. This does neither.

When we are so concerned about security issues, economic issues, privacy issues and sovereignty issues, the government, with this legislation, is taking the fastest route available to sell out on all four. I would have been embarrassed to have been the minister who had to present this legislation.

I was not happy then as the critic for transport to look for ways to be supportive. We always try to look for ways to co-operate. I was looking for the proverbial silver lining in this legislation. I wear glasses but I took them off, got a microscope and went through everything with a fine-toothed comb. I could not find that silver lining.

I was a little distressed to hear that everybody thinks that the silver lining will be in committee. Well, one of the people who will be called as a witness just happens to be a great authority on privacy issues. The Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Chantal Bernier, already came to the committee this past spring. She was asked what the Americans or anybody else would do with this information. As my colleague from the Western Arctic will recall, as he was sitting in that committee, she said that they could keep that information for from 7 days to 99 years. For what will they use that information? They could use it for anything they want.

Who is standing up for Canada? Who says that it is here for Canada? Who is being deceptive? Who is being duplicitous? Who is acting in a fashion that can only be called cowardly? I think Canadians are asking us to point in the direction of the Conservative government.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I think there is some confusion here. Today and on other occasions, we always want to support bills so that they can be sent to a committee for further study. However, agreeing with a bill in principle means that we have already agreed with it, making it virtually impossible to study the bill in depth.

I hold the hon. member in high regard and would like to know whether he thinks it might be possible to study bills in more depth here in the House where members have to publicly provide their well-thought-out views for the consideration of the House before the bills can be sent to a committee.

[Proactive Enforcement and Defect Accountability Legislation (PEDAL) Act, October 6th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in this place and to thank, first of all, hon. colleagues who have intervened in the debate. The first among them is my colleague from Westmount—Ville-Marie who seconded my bill just before the summer recess. He had the foresight to recognize the four points that are important and are presented in the bill.

I think government members as well have been supportive in this exercise and debate. The critic for the Bloc Québécois has also given an indication that the Bloc is seized with the issue and will be supportive. I want to thank my colleague from the NDP as well who sat with me on the joint committee that dealt with the issue of consumer safety. Although it focused primarily and almost exclusively on Toyota, it generated a series of decisions, questions and investigations by the transport committee that led to the deficiencies in our Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Those deficiencies are what the bill hopes to address.

I want to reiterate once again what some of my colleagues have mentioned, that this is driven by a desire to introduce an element and a culture of consumer safety, consumer protection and the government's responsibility to ensure that all manufacturers and all vendors of products that will impact on consumer safety and security, especially on the roadways or those who share the roadways, keep that first and foremost.

After a year or more of public hearings that took place not only in Canada but elsewhere, as my colleague from Windsor has indicated, and that prompted greater concerns internationally, we came forward with proposals. It is one thing to criticize and to critique, but it is another to come up with alternatives. It would be very easy to slam the companies. As our colleague from the Bloc has indicated, it is easy to name one company today, but we will have to pick on another one tomorrow and maybe a third and a fourth the day after. If we can establish a culture of consumer first, protection and security then we do not have to name a company; we have to establish a process whereby the culture prevails that the ultimate responsibility will be with the government.

The bill says that the Government of Canada is completely implicated in ensuring that that culture of consumer protection and consumer safety on the road system is part and parcel of the obligation which it already, as others have indicated, exercises but cannot fully implement.

The Motor Vehicle Safety Act has some drawbacks, some weaknesses that we hope to address. One of those weaknesses is, as my colleague from Markham has indicated, that the minister cannot effect a recall. He can receive advice. He can receive complaints. Those complaints will come from customer, but not necessarily from the manufacturer or vendors. They will come from a restricted geographic area.

We propose that in the globalized market environment the information come from all over the world, as in one case, one of the companies has already provided to the American authorities. If it is good for them, it is good for us. It is what we do with that information. We require reporting on a quarterly basis by the companies. We require a publicizing of the information that relates to defects. Of course we require a definition of “defect”, a definition that has been there and that the courts have indicated. We require an immediate safety mechanism, which is the brake override in those vehicles that already have an electronic throttle system.

The minister and the department are obliged, not only authorized. That is the important change. I look forward to colleagues helping us through this in committee, and I call for unanimous consent.

[Justice, October 6th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, for 18 months, while the Conservatives have been making empty promises on their tough on crime agenda, Toronto resident David Chen has been forced to defend himself in the judicial system for protecting his property.

Arrested and charged for apprehending a known and convicted criminal who robbed his store, Mr. Chen now faces the full weight of the legal system pressed against him.

In September 2009, in an obvious public relations exercise, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration visited Mr. Chen, called him a victim of crime and promised to right the wrong. The current Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice even promised legislation. A year has passed and nothing.

Last June, given government inaction, I proposed Bill C-547 as a solution. It would amend section 494 of the Criminal Code. If passed, the bill would signal Parliament's will to end this double victimization of citizens.

However, the Prime Minister can today adopt my bill and honour his government's commitment to end this injustice, or he can ignore it and feed the impression that this is yet another Conservative broken promise.